Tuesday, August 4, 2015

3 Simple Ways to Ensure Your SEO Strategy Isn’t Going Stale

We all have those moments when we find ourselves with more time on our hands than expected. Next time you've got a few of these moments, which are perfect times to knock out a few tasks that often get neglected when we focus on the day-to-day work, think about these three things to ensure your strategy isn't going stale:

1. Review

You know you should revisit these things, but never seem to have the time. This list may vary greatly depending on your typical workflow, but here are a few things that any SEO or digital marketer can take a look at when work slows down:

Review your key landing pages for grammar, tone and business opportunities. These pages contain content that doesn't frequently change; this type of content is meant to demonstrate the key competencies of your business, and should be kept fresh for both the search benefit and the benefit of your customers. Your content on key landing pages should play to the needs and trends of your customers, which have likely changed since the last time you made an update. If you focus on your customer needs, it will be easier to identify the direction your SEO strategy should take.

Target keywords and concepts for landing pages to ensure your strategy is still in line with your business goals. Once you've evaluated grammar, tone and customer benefit, ensure that your keyword strategy for these pages is in line with the type of searchers you want to attract to the page. It may be time to review your keyword research and realign your strategy based on new business goals. For example, if your company shifts its focus from selling one brand or product line to another, you'll want to ensure your content and keyword strategies reflect that shift as well.

If you don't regularly do a technical SEO audit on your site, consider conducting one. Regardless of the size of your business, it's always beneficial to review your site with a technical eye. These days, most sites don't intentionally try to practice black-hat tactics. Most technical SEO audits reveal hidden problems that send negative signals to search engines.

2. Reevaluate

Long-tail keyword strategies sometimes take a back-burner role in our SEO strategy because of the work that can be involved in capturing that type of traffic. If it's not something you focus on regularly, now is the time to revisit.

Complete your long-tail keyword research again or better yet, get help. Sometimes, it takes a fresh mind or a new set of eyes to dig into long-tail keyword research and come up with actionable next steps. Even if you're a one-person show at your company, enlist help from someone on your sales, UX or customer experience teams to brainstorm long-tail keyword opportunities with you. The biggest roadblock for long-tail keyword strategy can often be coming up with fresh ideas, and brainstorming is a task that anyone with some familiarity of your business and customer base can help with.

If you identify new opportunities regarding ideas that your company is truly a subject matter expert on, create a content plan. Keyword research without an action plan isn't a good use of your time. Keep notes as you do your research, and record both opportunities and areas where you do not think your company should focus and why. Once you do have a list of solid opportunities, make a list of how to pursue them. Whether it's updating existing content or creating new content, an action plan is your only shot at capturing traffic for those newly identified long-tail opportunities.

3. Receive

Talk to your sales team about business trends and customer feedback. Speaking with the people who interact closely with your customers, you'll identify pain points and opportunities to pursue in the months ahead.

This could indicate how the site should be restructured to account for more popular concepts and products. Sometimes, customer trends and needs unveil ways that your site should be restructured: a new navigation, renaming areas of your site, adding product categories. Chances are, these types of revelations will uncover projects that will take up more time than you have to burn, but it will help you prioritize for the months ahead.

You may identify user experience or content gaps that aren't currently addressed. Get feedback about the offline customer experience to help you figure out where there are gaps within your site's user experience or your content. If a common question comes up with customers time and time again, there is probably a way to address that on the website. Use these moments to plan for the months ahead, even if you can't execute a full solution today.

There's always something we can do to push our efforts as digital marketers and SEOs to the next level. Use your down time wisely and you'll keep yourself busy year-round.